n the second year of the
war the Admiralty proposed a competition among aeroplane-makers for a
large bombing machine and a fast fighting aeroplane. In the result the
Short machine for bombing, fitted with a 250 horse-power Rolls-Royce
engine, was produced. Later on, the single-seater Sopwith Pup and the
two-seater Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter set the fashion in fighting machines,
and did good work with the army at the battles of the Somme. The fact is
that in the early part of the war the best of the existing types of
aeroplane were more useful, as things stood, to the army than to the
navy, and when this was recognized a great part of the work of the Royal
Naval Air Service took the form of help given to the British army.

When in August 1915 Mr. Maurice Baring was sent to Rome on business
connected with aircraft, he records how he had speech with General
Morris, who was in charge of Italian aviation. 'What I am going to say
to you', said General Morris, 'will be absolutely unintelligible and
unthinkable to you as Englishmen, but I regret to say that here, in
Italy, it is a fact that there exists a certain want of harmony--a
certain occasional, shall I say, friction?--between the military and
naval branches of our flying service.' Mr. Baring was amused by this
speech, but he kept a grave countenance, and murmured, 'Impossible'.

Both the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service were eager
to serve their country. Their rivalry was creditable to them. When they
were called on to co-operate, their relations were friendly and helpful.
But the pressing need for more and more aeroplanes on the western front
dominated the situation. The Admiralty were many times asked by the
military authorities to hand over to the Royal Flying Corps large
numbers of machines and engines which were on order for the Royal Naval
Air Service. To the best of their ability they fulfilled these requests,
but the zealous members of a patriotic service would be more or less
than human if they felt no regret on being deprived of the control of
their own material.

When the Royal Flying Corps was formed, in the spring of 1912, it was
intended that either wing should be available to help the other. But
before the war broke out the two had almost ceased to co-operate. The
methods and subjects of instruction were distinct. The discipline and
training of the one wing were wholly military, of the other wholly
naval; and this severance had been officia